Portfolio FOR FIGMA — Contact
Long, short; digital, print; new brands and evolving ones: here is a selection of clients from the past few years. They include: Google, Elephant Healthcare OS, MESH web3 fund, The Obama Foundation and Brian Chesky, Madhappy, North Six, Paul Smith, Acne Studios, TAG Heuer, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, LoveFrom and – myself.
I am also the former managing editor of Monocle magazine and Winkreative creative agency, and former editor-in-chief of the UK’s Icon magazine.
TWENTY TWENTY–THREE
CONCEPT, WRITING / FOR SCALE
— Driven out of a passion for design, and as an experiment in a new journalistic tone of voice, I launched a weekly Substack, exploring the supreme potential of domestic interiors. Early praise, care of Herman Miller brand director: “In my opinion, the best design newsletter around.”FOR SCALE has an audience of 9,000 across 90 countries. Archive found here.
STRATEGY / MADHAPPY
— Currently working with LA-based clothing brand Madhappy on brand development, including revising their mission statement, and a forthcoming revision to their tone of voice, including first-ever tone of voice guidelines for the company. And, copywriting for their SS24 collection of graphic tees.This project has been key in bringing Madhappy’s three founders together over one mission for the company and, for the first time, explicitly communicating a mission to new members of Madhappy’s growing team.
EDITING, COPYWRITING / NORTH SIX
— A first-ever editorial expression by top-tier production company North Six, the North Six Yearbook is a celebration of 21 years of business. A snapshot in time of its places and projects, it also reaches outside its payroll and explores the world around it through the eyes of New Museum’s Karen Wong, guerilla garderner Ron Finley, GQ Middle East editor Ahmad Swaid, chef Rose Chalalai Singh, gallerist Alexander May, and others. In addition to the concept, commissioning, and editing, there was some copywriting, too – here, for example.
TWENTY TWENTY–TWO
COPYWRITING / MESH
— Refined and put to words the strategic foundation of MESH, a web3 fund and accelerator, as well as developing their tone of voice, one they wanted to be energized, optimistic, and stripped of industry jargon. COPYWRITING / AIRBNB
— As the only external copywriter, I developed the framing and wrote copy for the Voyager Scholarship for Public Service, a partnership between The Obama Foundation and Airbnb’s co-founder Brian Chesky – where common ground had to be found between two formidable, complex, and very particular clients.COPYWRITING / ASK US FOR IDEAS
— As part of an ongoing partnership (that also produced the Private View(s) podcast, in twenty nineteen), I wrote copy for the opening of the new offices of ASK US FOR IDEAS. Briefed to respond to artwork by Spiritual Objects and to introduce AUFI to their neighbors, it reads: “Delicate when alone. A kaleidoscope of joy when side by side. Some things are better together. ASK US FOR IDEAS is happy to be here with you.”
STRATEGY, TONE OF VOICE / BISHOP RANCH
— Content strategy and copywriting for Bishop Ranch, a once-vibrant business park near San Francisco seeking to reshape its image.COPYWRITING / WERT&CO.
— A new website for Wert&Co., leading executive search agency for the design sector.TWENTY TWENTY–ONE
COPYWRITING, STRATEGY / ACNE STUDIOS, 2020-2021
— Consulted with Acne Studios to round out their naturally steely Swedishness with a more poetic tone of voice for Instagram, their primary connection with their audience, as well as new types of humanized content (which would become #AcnePeople). This was importantly a data-led strategy, understanding Acne Studios’ changing audiences, as well as whom it sought to connect to, and reviewing its highest-performing campaigns and content types.
The process required input from and coordination between several stakeholders within Acne Studios – from its founder, to its marketing and design departments, as well as its global press offices in Paris and Shanghai.
Copy examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
COPYWRITING / PAUL SMITH
— With signature Paul Smith bright-and-Britishness, and the humble acknoledgment of the need for progress, new copy for the brand’s sustainability pages.CONCEPT, EDITING / ING
— Looking to communicate their multi-dimensional and culture-driven take on cities and architecture, I developed and end edited a first-ever book for essays and interviews on the built environment for consultancy and PR firm ING. Contributors came from wildly different points of view: musician and artist Brian Eno, legendary Berlin club owner Dimitri Hegemann, MoMA architecture and design curator Paola Antonelli, Cairo-based curator and writer Mohamed Elshahed, and others.TWENTY TWENTY
CONCEPT, COPYWRITING / WHERE WE STAND
— Where We Stand, a personal project, was a design challenge that asked 15 world-leading design agencies, designers and design partnerships to help reimagine public spaces to fit the physically-distanced demands we had to place on them, as we grappled with a global pandemic. The project was covered in Dezeen, El País (Spain), The Creative Review, The Brand Identity, It’s Nice That, Design Week, Grafikmagazin (Germany), The Business Times (Singapore), and others.COPYWRITING / LOVEFROM
— Trusted with co-writing the manifesto of LoveFrom, starting with the words of Jony Ive, around his notion of working from a place of ‘love and fury’.COPYWRITING / WGP MONOGRAPH
— Content strategy and writing for the not-entirely-typical monograph of London-based architects WG+P. A very zine-like design by Studio Lowrie was juxtaposed with contextualizing, intellectualizing, inquisitive copy.TWENTY NINETEEN
COPYWRITING, BRAND DEVELOPMENT / ELEPHANT HEALTHCARE O.S.
— Refining internal brand statements, tone of voice, and copywriting for an innovative mobile-first, data-driven healthcare OS, Elephant Healthcare.COPYWRITING / LOOKBOOKS
— The tone of voice and copy for online booksellers LOOKBOOKS. A short, simple, impactful ‘ABOUT’ to set the tone for an approachable but niche store:“LOOKBOOKS is an independent seller of old, kinda fun books. Founded in 2019 in London, we’re not beholden to borders: we do worldwide sourcing and worldwide shipping.”
CONCEPT, COPYWRITING / “PLACE SETTINGS” DINNER SERIES
— For leading ‘placemaking’ agency MARK (London, UK), I launched a dinner series that would bring together designers, bureacrats, and important locals (the librarian, the record store owner, the restaurateur) into conversation. The first was held on the rooftop of a former department store in Brixton and was dedicated to “grit”. The invite reads:“A good place is one that’s a bit lived in, isn’t it? But we never build them like that. We build them polished and ‘perfect’. Is that boring? Maybe even wrong? What is it about the ‘grit’ of a city that makes it a healthier, better, or even more inclusive place; and how do we let that in?
But there’s another type of grit that makes cities work, too: strength of character, a resolve to build and support ‘community’.
We raise our galsses to both and share experiences about it takes to build a place with good grit, and the right amount of it.”